The reason for the holdup became obvious as soon as I saw the group around me charging headfirst into the fray.

Up in the surface, when they had been attacking my drones, all the gathered people had come together in a big human wave. Smashing themselves against my drones with all the ferocity their emaciated bodies could muster and managing to press their advantage through the sheer weight of their numbers.

Down here though, things were different.

'Each person counts for a lot more in small groups and that makes their shortcomings more glaring.' I thought to myself.

Watching the group in front of me with weary eyes.

Their short spears were held at the ready with their main hands while they braced their shields with their off-hands.

Each one of them jabbed and prodded at the mutated rosebushes. Sharp points piercing through empty air or getting stuck on recently-dug stone walls. That latter eventuality was of particular import, as it left the attackers open for retaliation. Their strength and focus dedicated to either dislodging their weapons or else backing off with their shields raised with both hands.

In either case, the rosebushes danced around them with all the grace and easy of professional ballerinas. Slicing and dicing red ribbons on exposed flesh before slinking back behind the sunflower monsters.

For their part, the sunflowers remained motionless. There simply wasn't any need for them to get involved and I had given very specific orders that those who fell or lagged behind were to be left alone unless they attacked first.

Given all the trouble the roses were causing, there wasn't much chance of them seeing any action anytime soon.

The little thorny bastards were just to quick. Too nimble and too well-accustomed to the damp darkness of the corridors. Their thorny legs had no issues clinging to walls or even ceilings like spiders and their bundled-up, vine-like bodies were so flexible that they resembled flowing streams of green water whenever they danced around the spear tips.

As for the people....

Well.

A kind person might have said they weren't very good.

A not-so kind person might have commented that they had all the precision and subtlety of a theme park mascot high on meth and bath salts. More specifically, one found in Florida or Ohio. Running naked up and down the lines while the cops chased after them.

To make matters worse, their best strikes were so slow that the roses had time for tea, biscuits, a casual conversation, a quick nap and a quick scroll through Ourtube between each jab. All while being so telegraphed that blind children in California were expecting them.

In other words, they sucked.

A lot.

To the point where it didn't matter that the rosebushes were only aiming for their legs.

I could have ordered them to only attack the delver's pinky toes and this still would have been a one-sided slaughter.

'Did I suck this much when I started working out with coach Russell?'

I didn't think so.

I did spear a fair few Rippers with my friends and coach Homer on my first delve after all.

Although....

Thinking back on it, I had Marco, Drew and Ramji helping me the whole way down. That, and the Rippers that made their way to the surface were slower and clumsier than the people in front of me right now.

'Wait a second. Wait just a second. Did I just push these people into a murder-hole without properly preparing them first!?'

I blinked several times in quick succession and for a moment, I swore I could hear faint laughter in the distance.

It sounded like it belonged to coach Russell.

'Well well welly well well! Look what we have here! Choir-boy Cecil showing his true colors and opening a sweatshop! I guess its true what they say. There's no labour like slave labour! And all that while sending level zero guys to their deaths! Pushing them against monsters they have no business fighting! Of course, it's fine when he does it, but when I do it everybody loses their minds!'

Then I heard another voice. Remarkably akin to that of Elsie.

'Nya hahaha! Goody-two-shoes Cecil is out here building his own temple of doom! With blood sacrifices and everything! And his own Shortround to boot! Nya hahaha!'

"Out!" I commanded. "Everybody out! I need to do some more work around these parts! Everybody out into the surface!"

I placed my hands on those that had been injured as Shortround translated my words. My magic flowing through their bodies and healing them at once.

Once we were on the surface, I set about growing a series of flattened roots into the general shape of a beginner's obstacle course. One that ran the perimeter of the camp.

"Tell this group to run 5 laps. Then go with them. Take breaks or slow down if you have to. As many times as you need. But don't sit still for more than 15 minutes at a time. When that's done, get another six people from the farm workers and switch them out. Do that until the sun sets."

Shortround began translating. Then, she and the others started running without complaint.

I didn't know how to feel about that to be honest.

At the very least, I felt that a few insults towards me and my ancestors were warranted. I certainly felt as though I deserved them after the mess I'd made of this whole thing. I knew for a fact that releasing pent-up bitterness had a soothing effect on the psyche. Like balm for one's spirit. I know I did my fair share of cursing when coach Russell had me going up and down the hills for hours on end.

It had felt good to curse out him and his mother inside my head back then. Though I never had the courage to say it to his face, lest the big steroid-fueled gorilla rip my arms off and beat me to death with them.

That notion set off a whole other load of internal panic.

'Am I scary to them!? Are they not saying anything because they're afraid I'll start throwing them like ragdolls!?'

I thought about it for a couple of seconds. Then I came to the realization that that was exactly what they were all thinking.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The person they saw was not me. Not Cecil Fowler.

They had seen Conan the hairy pubescent maniac who had grown five entire farms from nothing, controlled horrible plant monsters without batting an eye, gotten into a screaming match with the two teleporting guys, told them to fight the aforementioned plant monsters and then strung them all up using magic super-roots.

'How did I not realize this earlier? Am I stupid? I'd always though I was pretty smart but everything I've done is starting to seem really really stupid from where I'm standing right now.'

I had been trying to save as many people as possible. Trying so hard to get stronger so that I could protect my family. So that I could protect as many innocents as I possibly could from hunger and the threat of monsters.

All that time, all that pain, all that stress and blood and tears...

All so that I could end up in the literal middle of nowhere running a human trafficking operation for a rich old geezer and his wacky eugenics doomsday cult.

And hurting the people I was supposed to help train on top of all that.

'All of my intentions were good. All the individual steps seemed reasonable. Maybe even noble. How did all of that turn into this? Where did everything go crazy?'

Yet another image seared itself into my mind then.

Another Cecil.

Another me.

One wearing a white tuxedo and sporting a thick handlebar moustache while riding a horse.

This other version of me was pointing at the crops and down at the Dungeon. Brandishing a whip and making the leather sing as the tip parted the air faster than the speed of sound.

"Go on! Gather more crops to sell! Go down and get eaten by my plant monsters! Go on! Get! Or you won't get food! Andale! Andale! Arribaaaaaa!"

In the vision, coach Russell stood behind me. A tear streaming down the corner of his eye.

"I'm so proud of you Cecil. You've taken after me, instead of your uncle. I'm so happy!"

Then Elsie came over from the side.

"Yay Cecil! I knew you could do it! Let's get married and keep oppressing people forever!"

I was screaming before I knew it. My heart gripped with a terror beyond words or mortal comprehension.

----------------------------------------

"Dude, are you sure you're okay?" Marco asked for the umpteenth time.

"Of course I'm okay. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because Mr. Robertson himself came to get us while we were home with our parents." Drew answered in a deadpan voice. "Apparently someone was having a mental breakdown."

"Huh. Funny that. I wonder who he might have been talking about."

Ramji gave me a look. Then his eyes went down to his Analyzer. His fingers pushing buttons up and down the length of the device.

A minute later, the bracelet was playing a video of a musclebound giant screaming his head off amidst a sea of vegetables, fruits and people picking said vegetables and fruits.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! OYAAAWAAWAAACELULALAU!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!"

The giant had said. All while the people working and running around him did their very best to ignore him. Their eyes suddenly finding the soil and leaves around them very interesting whenever the giant happened to glance their way.

I looked at the video. Then at my friends.

"Okay? So?"

"So we would like to talk." Marco spoke. His eyes tracking the plants around me for some odd reason.

"I'm fine." I lied. "I was just reconsidering some of the things I've done recently and how I could have done better. How I should have done better. It is all right now. I am going to do better. I'm digging out more floors in my pseudo-Dungeon and I'm making creatures that are as weak as possible for the others to get used to fighting. Just to get them started while they build up the necessary stats."

They all looked at each other.

"So you're not losing your marbles because Mr. Robertson threw a mountain of responsibility on top of you while you and your family are going through tough times?" Ramji asked.

"Yeah. It's crazy that he did this to you. I mean, I get that you're mature and that you like farm work for some reason. But you're fourteen and you just got your core and you're still figuring a lot of stuff out for the first time." Drew followed up.

"Don't forget that his uncle's crazy now too." Marco added.

"My uncle isn't crazy." I rebutted immediately.

Marco paused. Looked over at the other two and then back at me.

"Right. My bad. Your uncle's totally healthy. It's normal for men his age to bite paramedics."

I didn't think he meant for that sentence to come across as sarcastic as it did, so I let it go.

Still, I paused. Considering their words.

'Huh? When he puts it that way, this whole thing sounds like Mr. Robertson's fuck up instead of mine.'

Indeed, the more I thought about it, the more I agreed with that sentiment.

I'd been a dead-broke middle-school student less than two months ago. I was struggling to wrap my head around advanced functions before coming here. What did he and coach Russell expect me to do?

'Work the farms.' A little voice whispered in my ear. 'That's all you're good for anyway. All you had to do was work the farms, get the people to feed themselves and fill up the trucks. A monkey could have done it. It has to be you because you're the only one with the [Life] core. You couldn't keep aunt Cheryl safe from the rumors and the gossip and the bullies. You couldn't keep uncle Uter sane. You couldn't keep Eva happy. Feeding people and helping them get cores was the one thing you were good for. The one thing you could do to help the people of the world. It was simple and easy. And you mucked it up. Just like everything else.'

I shook my head to dispel the intrusive thoughts.

Not wanting to entertain them any further, for fear they might be right.

I waved over at the entrance to the cave I'd made for the people here at camp.

"I'm okay guys. Honest. I'm doing a lot of good here and I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. Here. I'll show you."

I brought them down to the re-worked first floor. Our steps echoing down the widened staircase as we descended deep into the earth.

Within a couple of minutes, we had arrived at a wide rectangular chamber. Tall enough that I could easily move around and large enough that whole groups would be able to maneuver without bumping into each other.

In the very center was the main interlocked trunks of the oak trees I had used as the main support pillar. With another door on the far side leading downwards into even deeper chambers.

In the ceiling were colonies of bio-luminescent mushrooms. All clustered together every two or so meters to make sure the people coming here could actually see where they were going.

The floors, which had previously been filled with entangling roots and vines, were now barren and exposed. The only obstacle coming from the fact that the drones had not been able to make them completely even and there were some sections were small, jagged pebbles could still be encountered.

That said, I did think it was an overall improvement over the last design. Especially when it came to the creatures.

"What, in the name of all that is good and holy, is that!?" Ramji exclaimed. Obvious surprise mixing with disgust on his face.

"It's a slime." I answered.

"Dude. That's not a slime." Marco rebutted me at once. "I've seen slimes. They're green or blue or red and they're mostly transparent. Like Jell-O that's been watered down a bunch. That is not a slime."

"Its slime-adjacent." I conceded.

"More like barf-adjacent." Drew quipped.

"It isn't that bad."

"Dude. It looks like a watery dog turd that got shit on by a flock of birds and then stepped on by coach Homer."

"Marco, stop. Just stop." Drew reared back. "I did not need that picture in my mind."

Marco shrugged.

"Just being honest is all. That's what it looks like."

Ramji turned to me. Eyes wide.

"Why would you make this Cecil? Why would you make this crime against nature? Are you trying to make people cry?"

"Probably made it to gross people out." Drew interjected again. "It's working as intended by the way."

I shook my head in denial.

"I made it to pick up the pebbles and even out the floors with some corrosive acid I managed to make when I started focusing on my own stomach. Then I realized that it couldn't really defend itself or move out of the way of attacks. I needed to tone down the difficulty and this was already made so I went along with my progress. I fattened it up some more with mashed-up fruits from the surface, threw in a snail or three and voila!"

"No Cecil. No voila. This is disgusting."

"It's brilliant is what it is. Yeah, it smells... quite bad. But that's about it. Well, that and it's hard to kill since it keeps regenerating so quickly. But the people above will be using the spears I made so it doesn't matter either way. Not like I'm asking them to kiss the thing. They won't need to get close."

I picked up a nearby pebble and threw it as hard as I could to make my point.

There was a loud squelching noise as the stone impacted upon the semi-liquid form of the monster. One that echoed off the walls for a brief second.

The slime writhed a little but otherwise didn't react.

"See? It's basically a dynamic, moving, living punching bag that helps you raise your stats! It's a perfect starting monster for newbies."

Ramji seemed to consider my words. Edging closer and closer to the slime.

"Okay. I get it. But what does it do when people get close?"

"Nothing. I tested it out myself."

Drew raised her hand sheepishly.

"But, don't your monsters... I dunno... not attack you? What does that prove?"

I was about to tell her, when the slime beat me to it.

It leapt at Ramji. Quick as a snake. Slithering up his chest and onto his face before he could blink. Like a jumping spider or a face-embracer from the 1980s Extraterrestrial.

Then, like that iconic monster, the slime latched onto his face and pressed itself against his mouth.

Right on cue to muffle the screams.